Low cost health insurance
Contrary to popular opinion, there are ways that you can save money on your health insurance coverage. There may never be plans that could be considered cheap, but if you know your needs, there is no problem getting low cost health insurance for yourself and your family, at least in comparison to other plans and, well, lacking health insurance altogether.
It is true that of the many Americans today that don’t have health insurance, many actually can’t afford any. However, there are also many of that number who don’t have health insurance because of misconceptions about insurance and the health care system. A lot of people don’t get health insurance because they think it costs too much, and, besides, they’re in perfect health. What they don’t realize is that some of the most expensive health care bills and some of the highest numbers in medical debt are billed to people who were otherwise in perfect health but were victims of bad luck or tragedy.
The first law of health insurance is that no matter what, it’s always more expensive to be uninsured. People who don’t have health insurance and then find themselves in something as simple as a small car accident can go through their savings, ruin their credit, and fall into huge debt. Even a minor ER visit can cost five hundred dollars.
If you can get insurance through your job, do it! It’s always cheaper, especially if you have previous medical problems that would make it hard for you to get medical insurance through anywhere else. Your employer foots part of the bill and you often get a choice of plans. And when you have a choice, compare, compare, compare. It’s frustrating and time consuming, but it’s the only way to save money and figure out what’s best for you.
Even when you find a plan that looks pretty cheap, cheap isn’t always best. The real deal breaker should be value. You don’t want simply the cheapest premium. You want the cheapest premium with the best coverage. This might be a little higher than that great quote you got, but it will save you more money down the line. Even if you do get a plan with great coverage though, remember that some expenses still fall through the gap. Things like mental health care and prescription drugs are the areas where even the best plans have little to no coverage.
As you were taught in history class, freedom ain’t free. The more flexibility that your health care plan gives you, the higher your premium will be. So it is up to you to decide what is more important to you: deciding who you go to for health care, or paying less on your premium. Less freedom of choice among health providers isn’t necessarily bad, so long as the physicians in the network are quality. And you can research a plan’s network before you sign up for it. Maybe not through the company itself, but there are a lot of sources online or off where you can find out about a certain plan’s track record.
One thing that might worry some people who are using employer based insurance is where they would be if they lost their job. Lucky for them, you don’t lose your health insurance when you lose your job. The government provides you with COBRA for a period of time after you lose your job. It can be more expensive, but it’s better than nothing and can ease a lot of minds.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
Spring break travel health insurance
Reader question:
I’m going on spring break this spring. Normally I’m insured through my school, but do I need a different health insurance for this?
July
Depends.
I think the first step for you would be to ask your school’s health insurance provider what their rules are for traveling while insured. Most school plans will at least cover you if you go home over break or during the summer. It depends on the school, but that might cover you regardless of where in the country you go. However, if you plan on traveling outside of the country for spring break, then that is a whole other story.
A lot of insurance companies for travel health insurance have certain plans for young people every year around the time for spring break. There’s nothing exactly for college and university students, usually, but a lot of times the plans are offered for people under thirty. One extremely cheap options is from Travel Guard Insurance, which has a program for people in their twenties and under which can cost from $29 on up for every trip. The cost of the insurance is dependent on the cost of the trip, but you only pay one time per trip.
One travel health insurance plan that might be particularly appealing to young people traveling during spring break, or even for any other break, is the Lifeguard plan offered by Champion health insurance. This costs about $47 for a trip averaging around fifteen days in length, and if you plan on doing anything risky, such as white water rafting or mountain climbing, you can add on a high risk provision for 15% more, averaging at $54. Champion’s CEO states that his company wants to raise awareness of the need for travel insurance when going on vacations or any other trek out of the country, because many people aren’t aware of not being covered while traveling.
There are a bunch of things that you will need from a travel insurance company that are usually offered. This things include provisions for if your trip ends up being cancelled midway, emergencies, delays in your travel plans, and losing your things through the airport. You might figure that coverage isn’t necessary, but you never know what you will need. Your insurance company should also have a all day all night help line which you can call from anywhere in the world to ask questions about your coverage.
If you get travel insurance, you should make sure that you are covered for being transported back to the U.S. in the case of your death. It’s not something you want to think about, but it’s always a possibility, and no one knows when they’re going to die. If you die in another country, they have no obligation to follow the traditions of your country or to send you back, and transporting a body can be expensive.
Most of all, just make sure that you make yourself safe for your trip, know where to go for medical help wherever you are at, and have fun!
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
International health insurance
Reader question:
We’ve just started making enough money so that we can seriously think about taking vacations every year. We’re planning the first one now (way ahead of time), and we’re trying to make sure that we do everything right, because we want to travel internationally and we’ve never been out of the country before. What should we plan for with international health insurance?
Mike & Susanne
Great question.
Everybody knows that they should have health insurance at home just in case something happens, and it doesn’t make sense that there are people who don’t think the same for international travel health insurance. It’s much easier to get into trouble when you’re in a place that you’re completely unfamiliar with. What if you end up driving in England? Accidents would be more likely while you’re getting used to their different driving styles. Getting a travel health insurance plan is extremely important, even if you will only be gone for a short amount of time. Here are some tips.
- MEDICAL EVACUATION.
This is one of the most important features for your international health insurance plan to have. If you just stuck with your regular health insurance plan, then you might get at most $1k for medical transportation, which is great at home, considering that an ambulance usually costs around five hundred dollars. However, if you travel outside of the country, one thousand dollars won’t life light you home, so you’ll need a much higher cap for a travel plan.
There are so many cases where Americans will go to a country and get injured or sick, only to arrive at an out of the way local hospital where their needs might not be met. These customers will then have to be transported via helicopter to a hospital more up on Western medicine, and those costs can come up to as much as $50,000–just for the flight!
You might think insurance isn’t necessary when you go on a cruise, but it’s the most important time to get it, especially medical evac coverage. If you’re on a ship, it costs more to get a flight, and the distance will most likely be longer since in most cases you will be being transported back to the states.
- Expect the unexpected.
I think it’s wonderful that the two of you are planning your trip so thoroughly, but there may be one aspect of planning that you’re missing: the possibility of cancellation or delay of your vacation. You might have your insurance, have your bags packed, your tickets paid, your hotel room reserved and everything, only to come down extremely sick the night before you leave. No one wants to go on vacation with a fever, so this can throw all the plans down the drain, especially it comes during that short one week vacation that you only get one time a year.
That’s why you need trip cancellation or interruption insurance. If you get this, then if something comes up so that you don’t get to go on your vacation, the insurance company will pay for any of those tickets, reservations, and so on that you can’t get your money back for. Same goes for if you have to end up coming home early.
- Terrorism.
It’s no fun to think about all of this stuff when you’re planning an exciting trip, but terrorism is becoming more and more prevalent, even in what are considered the safest areas. There have been many acts of terrorism even in Switzerland, where the crime rates are incredibly low. So anywhere you go, there is the possibility, just as there is if you stay at home.
Normally you can get your expenses reimbursed if the U.S. State Department hands out a warning about your destination country due to terrorist activity. You can also usually get your money back if an act of terrorism has been perpetrated in your country or city (depending on the insurance company) of destination within thirty days of your trip.
- Have fun!
The most important thing about your trip is to have a good time. Having international health insurance will make this easier, making you more secure while you’re away from home and able to know that your health is in good hands. Getting with a company that has a twenty four hour customer service line is the best way to keep yourself happy and comfortable with your plan while you are enjoying your trip.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurance
In Illinois, all of those with aching backs and hurting muscles are about to get a big break. The Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurance in Illinois is going to start covering chiropractic care, an area of medicine that many people want and need, but that most health insurance providers won’t touch because they deem it to be something elective, or not medically necessary. Those who have to deal with aches and pains everyday, and for whom pain pills aren’t enough or aren’t acceptable, they are very necessary, and Blue Cross has come to the light.
The program is called CAM, which stands for complementary and alternative medicine, and it is slated to start on the first of January. The problem that many consumers might find with it is that it is not an actual part of the coverage of their health insurance plan. Rather, it is separate, set up as a discount health insurance card. This does make things easier, as it means claims and referrals won’t be necessary like they usually are, though.
While the actual Blue Cross discount card is cheaper to begin with, it costs more than your usual health care plan if you have to end up using it. You pay the chiropractor or the practitioner of whatever type of alternative treatment you are getting, and the card is only responsible for giving you a discount. While it is a big discount, at twenty five percent, that is only the case if you work within the network that Blue Cross has chosen.
More and more people are becoming interested in alternative forms of health care, and Blue Cross is just the first health insurance company to have buckled under the weight of demands for coverage for this type of treatment. For those who cannot afford any other kind of health insurance, it might be a good start on getting some medical care, considering the lower costs.
Blue Cross is putting itself forward to help current and potential customers understand the program by providing them with a website called Healthy Roads. The website is still in its early stages, but it contains a load of information about different types of alternative health care. It also has a directory of alternative care providers who are part of Blue Cross’s program, and a bunch of products that might appeal to people interested in alternative health care. It’s a great source of information, even for those who do not have a Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurance plan.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
Infertility health insurance New York
Infertility is a huge problem that many women in American society face, and it can be a difficult thing to deal with, especially for couples who desperately want children of their own. Finding a way around the infertility that they have can be an extremely difficult and expensive process, and many couples go through years of intensive treatments, implantations, and drugs to try to get their bodies to jive with fostering life. In many cases, the cost is simply too much, and in others it never works at all.
For those in the former category, New York is making it easier for them to reach their goals. According to the New York state legislature, having children is a “fundamental aspect of being a human”, essentially a human right. For many years, infertility treatment has been considered an elective procedure, and most health insurance companies did not cover it. With the passing of this bill, though, it will become clear that, while infertility treatment is not medially necessary for health, it is for many people’s lives.
The law will make it easier for health insurance companies to provide coverage for this type of treatment, having them insure women between the ages of twenty five and forty four for infertility treatment, with a $60,000 lifetime cap. For people who have put their entire savings into trying to conceive a child, this is welcome news. It also requires that prescription drug coverage include fertility drugs, although these will not be taken out of the sixty thousand dollar lifetime maximum.
Like any type of health insurance coverage, women with this plan will also have to make co pays and pay deductibles. The plan will cover the following methods of fertility treatment:
- in vitro fertilization
- intracytoplasmic sperm injection
- assisted hatching
- gamete donation
- embryo donation
- embryo transfer
- gamete intrafallopian tube transfer
- zygote intrafallopian tube transfer
Those are the most expensive types, although they are not the only ones covered. You are only allowed to get this type of treatment if other, less expensive types of treatment have not been successful in bringing about a pregnancy sustained to the point of childbirth.
In order to get this coverage, you must have had a health insurance plan with the company for at least a year, and there must be reasonable belief that the fertility treatment undergone will bring about the birth of a healthy baby. The treatment must be undergone in a facility that is up to the standards set by the medical community. It is even possible to continue getting treatments once one has resulted in the birth of a healthy child. If an embryo transfer works, then you are insured for two more.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.